Our visit to Mozambique is shaping up to be…interesting.
Jen here. So, I was messing around tonight and decided to try ChatGPT. By the end, I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. What do YOU think is the over-under on this question? 🦒 👨
Tonight we finally completed our travel vaccinations for the trip. In addition to our final mpox shot, we also got a shot for cholera—as in, the beverage variety. The vaccine comes as a live-virus liquid you mix with water and quickly drink. Hence, the red solo cups… 😜😂
Ordered some basic business cards we can hand out to people who we meet or to anyone we want to direct to our website. Then they can contact us through the website. Much easier and safer than giving out our contact info to fun people we meet!
Registering with the US Dept. Of State - STEP
When we travel abroad, we always register our stays/travels with the US Department of State. So, just in case something happens while you’re in-country (conflict, weather disaster, etc.), the DOS knows where you might be and can get to you. It’s also a great way to get country information straight from the embassy, which would include any disaster/security alerts you’d want to know about. Both of us had to register separately, inputting 28 different places. Which triggered a lot of emails! 📧
If things go as planned, we’ll spend time in 11 different time zones on this trip.
Africa definitely has a tipping culture. A recommendation from our Safari company was to start the safari with envelopes containing the tip for each guide to make it easier. You can add more or take away from that amount depending on the level of service. So I’ve created some of our tip envelopes.
One month from today we head out on this huge adventure! Still so much to do to get ready to go. And we both often vacillate between being excited and wondering WTH are we doing!
In Person: Sat Nov 16
Come say farewell to us at our informal “Going Away” party (aka, we want to see some friends before we’re gone for 3+ months) on Sat Nov 16. We’ve reserved the private room at Wren Südhalle in Ahwatukee from 5-8p. Show up anytime.
Can’t make it? No worries, let’s find a time beforehand to get together instead. Contact us soon, as time is getting short and we have a lot left to do. Or…join us the following night:
Virtual: Sun Nov 17
Want to hear more about our trip but can’t meet us for a beverage?
We’ll host an informal “wish us luck before we go” Zoom call on Sun Nov 17 starting at 5pm Arizona/MST time. Pop in for a few minutes if you’d like. Message one of us for details, or check back here before the appointed time.
Choosing clothes for the trip is a bit tricky, given the varying places we’re heading to. Scott usually tends towards black & dark grays, but apparently those are colors to be avoided on safaris, along with white. While it’s not our style, wearing camouflage is prohibited in much of Africa.
A 2-week trip rarely requires thought about completing work training deadlines. Jen has had to strategically figure out which online trainings she has to do between now and March to ensure she doesn’t fall out of compliance while we’re gone (since she won’t have access to her government computer).
So, how’s the weather going to be on our trip? 🤔
Well, the beginning of the trip will be coldest; South Korea averages 39º as a high—brrr!
But the vast majority of our trip will feature “feels like” highs between 80-90º, cooling off only 10º at night. So it’s going to be generally toasty trip. 🥵
Want to hang out with us before we leave?
We’re organizing an informal “going away party” on Sat 11/16. We’ll start at Wren Südhalle in Ahwatukee from 5-8p, then transition down the street to Tukee’s for karoake, which starts at 9p.
We’re also hosting an “open house” Zoom on Sun 11/7. Deets soon!
Welp, it appears that we’ll need to bring five different electrical plug adaptors on our trip: types C, G, D, F, I, and M.
When researching places to go, it’s always interesting to see what is “important” information to provide for travelers. I was amused finding an entire page on Taipei’s metro system dedicated solely to “Metro Etiquette,” including many PDFs on the various individual etiquette points.
We got our International Driving Permits today, which we’ll need for the latter portion of our trip. IDPs are primarily a form of identification that’s correlated to your existing driver’s license; you need to carry both when you drive in countries that accept them.
More work on our travel vaccinations this week. We just learned our local Walgreens pharmacy has dedicated a specific RX bin solely for Jen and I for our trip vaxxes (we get 5 more shots tomorrow, with 8 more in a month). We weren’t looking to become pharmacy-phamous, but uhhh here we are…? 😂😭
We’ve finally decided on our trip’s camera setup. We paired Scott’s Nikon Z5 with a new 28-400mm lens, and bought Jen a used Nikon Z50, which she’ll pair with Scott’s 24-200mm lens—a simple yet adequate solution for our wildlife safaris. We’ll also bring our Olympus Tough TG-4 + TG-6 for snorkeling.
We set off on our 100-day adventure around the world exactly two months from today. 😳
Preparing for mosquitos
One of the big things we need to avoid on this trip is mosquitos, which carry a variety of nasty ailments. We’ve been working on our skeeter-related vaccinations, and will also be on anti-malaria meds for more than half the trip. And we’ll have bug nets covering our beds at night in the most affected areas. Even with those precautions, however, you still need to pay close attention and use bug spray.
Before prior trips to buggy places, we’ve relied on pretreating our own clothes using spray-on permethrin, and supplementing that with picaridin insect repellent (which we prefer over DEET) during the trip.
That’s not a great option for us on this trip, as at-home treatment only lasts a handful of washes. And, well, our trip lasts quite a bit longer than that. So instead, we’re going to send our clothes in to Insect Shield for professional treatment, which is intended to last for a garment’s expected lifespan. That takes some processing and shipping time, however, so we need to make sure we have all of our trip clothes in hand well in advance—a task we’re actively engaged in right now.
